very seldom goes out of them: he lives very luxuriously and without
any labour, because he discharges it all upon his governors. He and
all the dwellers in this city are Gentiles, coloured men and nearly
white, of long and very smooth black hair; they are well
proportioned men, of features and ----[180] similar to our own, and
so likewise are the women. The costume of the men is from the waist
downwards with many folds and very tight, and a short shirt which
reaches half way down the thigh, made of white cotton stuff, silk,
or brocade, open down the front, small caps on their heads, and the
hair gathered up on the top, some caps of silk or brocade, and their
sandals on their bare feet, cloaks of cotton stuff or silk on their
arms, and their pages with their swords behind them, and their
bodies anointed with white sandal, aloes-wood, camphor, musk, and
saffron; all ground together with rose-water. They bathe every day,
and after bathing, anoint themselves. They wear small gold chains
and jewels round their necks, and bracelets on their arms, and rings
on their fingers of very valuable jewels, and also many jewels in
their ears of pearls and precious stones. And they take a second
page who carries for them a slender canopy with a long handle with
which to shade them and protect them from the rain. These shades are
of silk stuff, much ornamented with gold fringes, and some of them
have jewels and seed-pearls, and made in such a manner that they
shut up and open; and some of these cost three or four hundred gold
pieces, according to the quality of the persons. The women wear a
cloth of very fine white cotton, or of silk of pretty colours, which
may be about six cubits long; they gird themselves with part of this
cloth from the waist below, and the other end of the cloth they cast
over the shoulder and the breasts, and one arm and shoulder remain
uncovered; on their feet sandals of gilt and well-worked leather;
their heads bare, only their hair combed, and they put a plait of it
over their heads, and in this many flowers and scents; and in the
nostrils a small hole on one side, and in it a gold thread with a
drop, either a pearl, or a ruby, or a sapphire drilled with a hole;
their ears also are bored and in them they wear many gold rings with
pearls and precious stones; and jewel necklaces round their throats,
bracelets on their arms of the same fashion, and also strings of
fine round coral on their arms, many rings with precious stones on
their fingers; and girt over their clothes with belts of gold and
jewels; and rings of gold on their legs; so that for the most part
these are very rich and well-dressed people. They are great dancers;
they sing and play on various instruments; they are taught to tumble
and to perform many feats of agility. They are pretty women, and of
a grand presence. These people marry in our manner; they have a
marriage law, but the great men marry as many women as they can
maintain, and the king has with him in his palaces many wives,
daughters of the great lords of his kingdom; and, besides these, he
has many others as concubines, and others as serving women who are
chosen throughout the kingdom as the most beautiful. And all the
attendance on the king is done by women, who wait upon him within
doors; and amongst them are all the employments of the king's
household: and all these women live and find room within these
palaces, which contain apartments for all. They bathe every day in
the pools of water, they sing and play on their instruments, and in
a thousand ways amuse the king: and he goes to see them bathe, and
from thence sends to his chamber the one that pleases him most; and
the first son that he has from any of these, inherits the kingdom.
Amongst them there is so much envy and rivality for the preference
of the king, that sometimes they kill themselves with poison. This
king has a house in which he meets with the governors and his
officers in council upon the affairs of the kingdom; and there all
the great men of the realm go to see him with great gifts; and he
dispenses great favours and likewise great punishments to those that
deserve them. These great men, his relations and those of great
lineage, when they do anything ill-done or prejudicial to his
service, are summoned to him; and they have to come immediately: and
they come in very rich litters on men's shoulders, and their horses
are led by the bridle before them, and many horsemen go in front of
them. They get down at the door of the palace and wait there with
their trumpets and musical instruments, until word is brought to the
king, and he commands them to come to his presence; and if they do
not give a good excuse and account of themselves and of the evil of
which they are accused, he commands them to be stripped and thrown
on the ground, and there bids them to receive many stripes. If such
a person were a near relation of the king's or a very great
personage, the king himself scourges him with his own hand, and
after he has been well beaten, the king orders very rich garments to
be given him from his own clothes chests, and then directs him to be
reconducted to his litter, and carried with great honour and great
clang of musical instruments and festivity to his abode. Many
litters and many horsemen always stand at the door of this palace:
and the king keeps at all times nine hundred elephants and more than
twenty thousand horses, all which elephants and horses are bought
with his money: the elephants, at the price of fifteen hundred to
two thousand ducats each, because they are very great and
well-fitted for war, and for taking about with him continually for
state. And the horses cost from three to six hundred ducats each,
and some of the choicest for his personal use, nine hundred or a
thousand ducats. These horses are distributed amongst the great
lords who are responsible for them, and keep them for the gentry and
knights to whom the king bids them to be given: and he gives to each
knight a horse and a groom and a slave girl, and for his personal
expenses four or five pardaos of gold per month, according to who he
is; and, besides that, each day's provisions for the horse and
groom; and they send to the kitchen for the rations both for the
elephants and horses. The kitchens are very large and numerous, they
contain many cauldrons of copper, and several officials who cook the
food of the elephants and horses; which, it must be said, is rice,
chick-peas, and other vegetables. In all this there is much order
and arrangement, and if the knight to whom the king has given a
horse cares for it and treats it well, they take away that one and
give him another and a better one; and if he is negligent, they take
his away and give him another that is worse. And thus all the king's
horses and elephants are well fed and cared for, at his cost: and
the grandees, to whom he gives a great quantity of them, act in the
same manner with their knights. These horses live but a short time;
they are not bred in this country, for all of them are brought there
from the kingdom of Ormuz and that of Cambay, and on that account,
and for the great need of them, they are worth so much money. This
king has more than a hundred thousand men, both horse and foot, to
whom he gives pay: and fully five or six thousand women, to whom
also he gives pay. And wherever there is war, according to the
number of men-at-arms whom he sends there, he likewise sends with
them a quantity of women; because they say that it is not possible
to bring together an army, nor carry on war well, without women.
These women are like enchantresses, and are great dancers; they play
and sing, and pirouette. And whenever the king's officers take and
enrol any man, they strip him and look what marks he has got on his
body, and measure what his stature is, and set it all down in
writing, and from whence he comes, and the names of his father and
mother: and so he remains enrolled with all these particulars in the
pay books. And after being enrolled, it is with difficulty that he
can again obtain permission to go to his country; and if he flies
and is taken, he runs great danger, and is very ill treated. Among
these men-at-arms there are many knights, who arrive there from many
parts to take service, and these do not cease to live in their
creeds. In this kingdom there are three sects of Gentiles, and each
one of them is distinguished from the others, and their customs are
different. In the first place, the king and the grandees, and lords
and chief people of the men-at-arms, can marry more than one wife,
especially the grandees, who can maintain them: their children are
their heirs. The wives are bound to burn themselves and to die with
their husbands when they decease, because when the people die, their
bodies are burned, both of men and women. And the wives burn
themselves alive with them to honour them, in this manner: that is
to say, if she is a poor woman of little rank, when the body of the
husband is borne out to be burned in an open space outside the city,
where there is a great fire, and whilst the body of the husband is
being consumed, the wife casts herself, of her own will, into the
fire, and burns there with him. And if she is some honourable woman,
and of much property, and whether she be a young woman of beautiful
presence, or old, when her husband dies, the relations all go to the
before mentioned open space, and make a wide grave as deep as a
man's height, and fill it with sandal and other wood, and place the
dead body within and burn it; and his wife, or wives, weep for him,
and then, should she desire to honour her husband, she asks for a
term of a certain number of days to go and be burnt with him. And
they bid all her relations, and those of her husband, come and do
her honour, and give her a festal reception. And in this manner all
collect together, and entertain and pay court to her, and she spends
what she possesses among her relations and friends, in feasting and
singing, in dances and playing on musical instruments, and
amusements of jugglers. And when the term fixed has ended, she
dresses herself in her richest stuffs, and adorns herself with many
precious jewels, and the rest of her property she divides amongst
her children, relations, and friends, and then mounts a horse, with
a great sound of music, and a large following. The horse must be
grey, or very white if possible, for her to be seen better. And so
they conduct her through the whole city; paying court to her as far
as the place where the body of her husband was burned; and in the
same grave they place much wood, with which they light a very great
fire, and all round it they make a gallery with three or four steps,
whither she ascends with all her jewels and robes; and when she is
upon the top she takes three turns round it, and raises her hands to
heaven, and worships towards the east three times. And having ended
this, she calls her relations and friends, and to each she gives a
jewel of those which she wears: and all this with a very cheerful
demeanour, not as though she were about to die. And after she has
given them away, and there only remains a small cloth with which she
is covered from the waist downwards, she says to the men, "See,
gentlemen, how much you owe to your wives, who, whilst enjoying
their freedom, burn themselves alive with their husbands." And to
the women she says, "See, ladies, how much you owe to your husbands,
for in this manner you ought to accompany them even in death." And
when she has concluded uttering these words, they give her a pitcher
full of oil, and she places it on her head and says her prayer, and
takes three more turns and worships to the east, and casts the
pitcher of oil into the pit where the fire is: and she springs into
it, after the pitcher, with as much good will as though she were
jumping into a pool of water. And the relations have ready for this
occasion many pitchers and pots full of oil and butter, and dry
wood, which they immediately throw in, so that so great a flame is
at once kindled, that she is suddenly reduced to ashes. And
afterwards they collect these ashes, and cast them into flowing
rivers. All perform this in general, and if any women do not choose
to do this, their relations take them, shave their heads, and turn
them out of their houses and families with disgrace. And so they
wander through the world as lost ones. And those of this sort to
whom they may wish to show favour, are sent to the houses of prayer
of the idols, to serve and gain for that temple with their bodies,
if they are young women. And of these houses there are many, which
contain fifty or a hundred women of this sort; and others, who of
their own accord, being unmarried, place themselves there.[181]
These have to play and sing, for certain hours of the day, before
their idols, and the rest of the time they work for themselves.
So also when the king dies, four or five hundred women burn
themselves with him in the same manner, and they throw themselves
suddenly into the pit and fire where they burn the body of the king:
for the pit and fire are very large, and a great quantity can be
burned in it, with great abundance of wood, sandal, brasil, eagle
wood, aloes wood, and much oil of sesame and butter to make the wood
burn well. So great is the haste of those who wish to burn
themselves first, that it is something wonderful, and many men,
confidants of the king, burn themselves with him. These people eat
meat, fish, and all other viands, only cow is forbidden them by
their creed. There is another sect of Gentiles who are called
Bramans, who are priests and directors of the houses of prayer.
These do not eat meat or fish, they marry only one wife, and if she
dies they do not marry again: their children inherit their property.
They wear over the shoulder three threads as a sign of being
Bramans. These do not die for any cause, or crime which they may
commit; they are very free and easy, and are very much venerated
amongst the people. They enjoy amongst them large alms from the
kings, lords, and honourable people, with which they maintain
themselves; and many of them are rich, and others live in the houses
of prayer which there are about the country, after the manner of
monasteries. These temples also have great revenues. These people
are great eaters, and do no work except in order to eat: and they at
any time go eight leagues to satisfy themselves with food, which
they can eat on the road. Their food is rice, butter, sugar,
vegetables, and milk. In this country there is another sect of
people, who are like Bramans: they wear round their necks hung with
silk cords and wrapped in coloured cloth, a stone of the size of an
egg, and they say that it is their god. These people are much
venerated and honoured in this country; they do them no harm for any
offence which they may commit, out of reverence for that stone,
which they call tabaryne.[182] Neither do these people eat flesh nor
fish; they go safely in all countries, and they transport from one
kingdom to another much merchandise and money of the merchants, on
account of their greater security from thieves. And there are some
of them who deal in merchandise with their tani bar ine round their
necks. These likewise marry only one woman, and if they die before
their wives, they bury these alive in this manner.[183] It must be
said, that they make a grave for her a little deeper than she is
tall, and put her in it standing, and while she is quite alive they
throw in earth all around her, and press it down with their feet
until she is walled in with earth much pressed down, which reaches
to her neck, and then they put some large stones above her, and
leave her there alive covered with earth until she dies; and on this
occasion they perform great ceremonies for them. The women of this
country are so enterprising and idolatrous, that they do marvellous
things for the love of their idols, in this manner. There are
amongst them young girls who desire to marry some man for whom they
have a liking, and one of these will promise her idol to do it a
great service if she should marry such a one whom she wishes for.
And if she marries that one, she then says to him, I have to make a
feast for such a god, and I have to offer my blood before I deliver
myself to you. And so they appoint a day for celebrating that feast.
And she takes a large waggon with oxen, and they fix it in a very
high crane, such as those with which they draw water, and they
fasten it to an iron chain with two iron hooks, and she comes out of
her house with great honour, accompanied by all her relations and
friends, men and women, with much singing and playing of
instruments, and many dancers and jesters; and she comes wrapped
very tightly round the waist with her white stuffs, covered from the
waist to the knees, the rest bare, and at the door of her house,
where the car stands, they lower the crane, and stick the two hooks
into her in the loins between the skin and the flesh, and put into
her left hand a small round shield, and a little bag with lemons and
oranges. They then raise the crane with great shouting and sound of
instruments, firing guns, and making other festal demonstrations:
and in this manner the car begins its march on the way to the house
of the idol to which the promise was made, and she goes suspended by
those hooks fastened into her flesh, and the blood runs down her
legs. And she continues to sing and shout for joy, and to strike
upon the shield, and to throw oranges and lemons to her husband and
to her relations, who go with her in this manner to the door of the
said house of prayer, where they take her down, and cure her, and
deliver her to her husband; and she gives at that place great alms
to the Bramans and offerings to the idols, and a great feast to as
many as accompanied her.
There are other persons also who offer the virginity of their
daughters to an idol, and as soon as they are ten years of age they
take her to a monastery and the house of prayer of that idol, with
great honour, and accompanied by her relations, entertaining her
like one that is going to be married. And outside of the monastery,
at the door, there is a bench of hard black stone, square, of half a
man's height, and surrounded with wooden steps, with many oil lamps
placed on the steps, which are lit at night.[184]
* * * * *
This King of Narsinga is frequently at war with the King of Dacani,
who has taken from him much of his land; and also with another
Gentile King of the country of Otira,[185] which is the country in
the interior. And he always sends his captains and troops to this
war, and on some occasions, if of necessity, he goes to the war in
person; and as soon as it is determined on, he goes out to the
country, on a certain day, on an elephant or in a litter, very
richly adorned with gold and jewels, accompanied by many knights and
horse and foot-men: and many elephants go before him, all covered
with scarlet cloth and silk, and much bedizened and dressed out as
for a feast. And as they go through the fields they bring the king a
horse, on which he rides, and a bow and an arrow, which he shoots
towards the part where he intends to go and make war. And they name
the day of his setting out, and this news immediately runs
throughout all the kingdom. He then pitches his tents and camp in
the country, and there remains until the appointed term of days is
accomplished for his departure. When this is concluded he orders the
city to be set on fire, and directs it all to be burned except the
royal palaces, castles, houses of prayer, and those of some of the
grandees which are not covered with thatch, in order that all may go
to the war to die with him, and with his wives and children, whom he
has with him in the wars. In order that these may not take to flight
he directs large pay to be given to all: in the first place, to the
enchanting single women, who are numerous, and who do not fight, but
their lovers fight for love of them very vigorously. And it is also
said that many men come from all the other kingdoms to this king's
camp for the love of these women,[186] amongst whom there are many
very honourable ones, great confidantes of the king, who come of
great houses, and are very rich. Each one of them keeps seven or
eight pretty waiting women, who are given to them by their mothers
to bring them up, and put them in the court enrolled on the pay
list. They hold this service in great honour, and it is but a short
time since one of them died who had no son nor heir, and left the
king for her heir; and he gathered from the inheritance sixty
thousand gold pardaos, besides twelve thousand which he gave to a
waiting woman of his, whom he had brought up from a girl: which is
not to be wondered at for the great wealth of the kingdom.
In this kingdom jewels are esteemed as treasure by the king and also
by the rich, who buy them at large prices. The people of this
kingdom are great hunters both of flying game and wild beasts. There
are many small hacks, and very good ones to go.
HOTISA.
Having passed the said kingdom of Narsynga inland, there is next
another kingdom called Hotisa,[187] which confines with it on one
side, and on another with the kingdom of Bengal, and on the other
with the kingdom of Dely: and it is inhabited by Gentiles. The king
is also a Gentile, very rich and powerful, who has many foot
soldiers; he is frequently at war with the kingdom of Narsinga, from
which he has taken lands and villages; and the King of Narsinga has
taken others from him: so that they are rarely at peace. Of the
customs of these people I have little information, on account of
their being placed so much in the interior of the country. It is
only known that in that country there are very few Moors, and that
they are almost all Gentiles and very good fighting men.
KINGDOM OF DELY.
Having passed this kingdom of Otisa, more inland there is another
great kingdom, which is called Dely, of many provinces, and of large
and rich cities of great trade. This kingdom is of the Moors, and
has a Moorish king, a great lord; and in former times this kingdom
was of the Gentiles, of whom there are still many who live amidst
the Moors, with much vexation. And many of them nobles and
respectable people, not to be subject to the Moors, go out of the
kingdom and take the habit of poverty, wandering the world; and they
never settle in any country until their death; nor will they possess
any property, since they lost their lands and property, and for that
go naked, barefooted, and bareheaded; they only cover their
nakedness with coverings[188] of brass, in this manner: it must be
said, that they wear belts of Moorish brass of pieces fitted
together, of four fingers in breadth, carved with many images of men
and women, sculptured and shining: and they wear it so tight that it
makes their guts rise high up; and from the girdle below the hips
there comes a bandage of the same brass, and in front it forms a
sort of braguette, which comes and fastens in the girdle in front
with its fastenings: all very tight. Besides this, they carry very
heavy chains round their necks, and waists, and legs; and they smear
all their bodies and faces with ashes. And they carry a small brown
horn at their necks, after the fashion of a trumpet, with which they
call and beg for food at the door of any house where they arrive:
chiefly at the houses of kings and great lords and at the temples;
and they go many together, like the gipsies.[189] They are
accustomed to stop very few days in each country. These people are
commonly called jogues, and in their own speech they are called
zoame, which means servant of God. They are brown, very well made
and proportioned, of handsome faces; they wear their hair without
ever combing it, and made into many plaits, wound round the head.
And I asked them many times why they went in this fashion. And they
answered me, that they wore those chains upon their bodies as
penance for the sin which they committed for allowing themselves to
be captured by such bad people as the Moors, and that they went
naked as a sign of dishonour, because they had allowed their lands
and houses to be lost, in which God brought them up; and that they
did not want more property since they had lost their own, for which
they ought to have died; and that they smeared themselves with ashes
in order to remind themselves perpetually that they were born of
earth and had to return again to the earth, and that all the
rest[190] was falsehood. And each one of them carries his little bag
of these ashes with him; and all the Gentiles of the country honour
them greatly, and receive from them some of these ashes, and put it
on their heads,[191] shoulders, and breasts, making a few lines with
it. And throughout all the country the Gentiles are in the habit of
doing this. And so also throughout all India among the Gentiles,
many of them turn jogues; but most of them are from the kingdom of
Dely. These jogues eat all meats and do not observe any idolatry,
and they mingle with all kinds of people: neither do they wash like
other Gentiles, except when the wish to do so comes to them.
In this kingdom of Dely there are many very good horses, which are
born and bred there. The people of the kingdom, both Moors and
Gentiles, are very good fighting men and good knights, armed with
many kinds of weapons; they are great bowmen, and very strong men;
they have very good lances, swords, daggers, steel maces, and
battle-axes, with which they fight; and they have some steel wheels,
which they call chacarani, two fingers broad, sharp outside like
knives, and without edge inside; and the surface of these[192] is of
the size of a small plate. And they carry seven or eight of these
each, put on the left arm; and they take one and put it on the
finger of the right hand, and make it spin round many times, and so
they hurl it at their enemies, and if they hit anyone on the arm or
leg or neck, it cuts through all. And with these they carry on much
fighting, and are very dexterous with them.
This king of Dely confines with Tatars, and has taken many lands
from the King of Cambay; and from the King of Dacan, his servants
and captains, with many of his people, took much, and afterwards in
time they revolted and set themselves up as kings. In this kingdom
of Dely there are some trees, the root of which is called
Baxarague,[193] and it is so poisonous that any one who eats it dies
at once; and its fruit is called Nirabixy,[194] and it is of such
virtue that it extinguishes all poison, and gives life to any one
poisoned with the said root or with other poisons. These jogues, who
come from the kingdom of Dely, carry this root and fruit; some of
them give it to some Indian kings; and so likewise they carry with
them sometimes rhinoceros' horn and Pajar stone, which possess great
virtue against all poisons. And this stone, Pajar, is grey and soft,
of the size of an almond; and they say that it is found in the head
of an animal: it is greatly esteemed amongst the Indians.[195]
COUNTRY OF MALABAR.
Having passed the province of Tulynate, which is of the kingdom of
Narsinga, along the coast of the sea, which province begins from
Cinbola near the mountain Dely, and ends at the Cape of Conmery,
which is a distance of seventy leagues along the coast towards the
south and south-east. And there begins the country of Malabar, which
was governed by a king who was called Sernaperimal,[196] who was a
very great lord. And after that the Moors of Mekkah discovered
India, and began to navigate near it, which was six hundred and ten
years ago; they used to touch at this country of Malabar on account
of the pepper which is found there. And they began to load their
ships with it in a city and seaport, Coulom,[197] where the king
used frequently to be. And so for some years these Moors continued
their voyages to this country of Malabar, and began to spread
themselves through it, and became so intimate and friendly with the
said king, that they made him turn Moor, and he went away with them
to die at the house of Mekkah, and he died on the road. And before
he set out from his country, he divided the whole of his kingdom of
Malabar amongst his relations; and it remained divided amongst them
and their descendants as it now is. And when he distributed the
lands, he abandoned those that he gave, never to return to them
again; and at last, when he had given away all, and there did not
remain anything more for him to give, except ten or twelve leagues
of land all round the spot from which he embarked, which was an
uninhabited beach, where now stands the city of Calicut. And at that
moment he was accompanied by more Moors than Gentiles, on account of
having given to the latter almost all that he possessed, and he had
with him only one young nephew, who waited on him as a page, to whom
he gave that piece of land; and he told him to get it peopled,
especially that very spot whence he embarked. And he gave him his
sword and a chandelier, which he carried with him for state. And he
left an injunction to the other lords, his relations to whom he had
made grants of lands, that they should obey him, only leaving exempt
the King of Coulam and the King of Cavanor:[198] so that he
instituted three kings in the country of Malabar, and commanded that
no one should coin money except the King of Calicut. And so he
embarked at the same place where the city of Calicut was founded;
and the Moors held this time and place in much veneration, and would
not after that go and load pepper any more in any other part since
the said king embarked there after becoming a Moor and going to die
at Mekkah. This city of Calicut is very large, and ennobled by many
very rich merchants and great traffic in goods. This king became
greater and more powerful than all the others: he took the name of
Zomodri,[199] which is a point of honour above all other kings. So
that this great King of Malabar did not leave more kings than these
three: that is to say, the Zomodry, who was named Cunelava-dyri, and
the King of Culaon, who was named Benate-diry, and the King of
Cananor, who was named Coletry.[200] And there are many other lords
in the country of Malabar, who wish to call themselves kings; and
they are not so, because they are not able to coin money, nor cover
houses with roofs under penalty of all the others rising up against
whomsoever should do such a thing, or of having to destroy them. And
these kings of Culam and Cananor afterwards struck money for a
certain time in their countries without having the power of doing
so. In all the country they use one language, which is called
Maleama, and all the kings are of one sect, and almost of the same
customs.
In these kingdoms of Malabar there are eighteen sects of Gentiles,
each one of which is much distinguished from the others in so great
a degree that the ones will not touch the others under pain of death
or dishonour or loss of their property: and all of them have
separate customs in their idol-worship, as will be set forth further
on.
CUSTOMS OF THE SAID KINGDOMS AND COUNTRY OF MALABAR.
In the first place, the Kings of Malabar are, as has been said,
Gentiles, and honour their idols: they are brown, almost white,
others are darker; they go naked from the waist upwards, and from
the waist downwards are covered with white cotton wraps and some of
them of silk. Sometimes they clothe themselves with short jackets
open in front, reaching halfway down the thigh, made of very fine
cotton cloth, fine scarlet cloth, or of silk and brocade. They wear
their hair tied upon the top of their heads, and sometimes long
hoods like Galician casques, and they are barefooted. They shave
their beards and leave the moustaches[201] very long, after the
manner of the Turks. Their ears are bored, and they wear in them
very precious jewels and pearls set in gold, and on their arms from
the elbows upwards gold bracelets, with similar jewels and strings
of very large pearls. At their wrists over their clothes they wear
jewelled girdles three fingers in width, very well wrought and of
great value.